Much Ado About Eternal Damnation

Tiffany Yochum

Published At:2018-06-06 02:17:19

I. Going In
One’s life moves in rather remarkable ways.
“Heil!” barks Hitler, en route to get a copy of one of the many morning papers (Hell is rife with publications by frustrated egoists). I nod, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Heil, Hitler.”...

<center><strong>I. Going In</strong></center>
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<p>One’s life moves in rather remarkable ways.</p>
<p>“Heil!” barks Hitler, en route to get a copy of one of the many morning papers (Hell is rife with publications by frustrated egoists). I nod, taking a sip of my coffee.</p>
<p>“Heil, Hitler.”</p>
<p>He nods in return, mustache quivering slightly. I look back at my paper, trying to glean some sort of solid content from its meandering passages.</p>
<p><em>Ugh, did they let Stephen King write the front-pagers </em>again?</p>
<p>“Damn them!” he (Hitler) suddenly shouts, and I don’t have to look up from my paper to know that he’s waving a fist at the ashy heavens – Earth, I guess you’d call it – mouth frothing.</p>
<p><em>It’ll just be a moment, and then he’ll be shouting in full-on German again, and </em>hello, migraine.</p>
<p>“I know, old boy,” I say, turning the page and steadying myself for the usual mid-morning tirade. “The Jews, right?”</p>
<p>“THEY HAVE SUBVERTED OUR PEOPLE!” he says, now waving both fists at nothing in particular. Little flecks of saliva start to dot his rather absurd little mustache. I sigh, settling more comfortably into my seat.</p>
<p><i>Ah, here we go again</i>.</p>
<p>“I know,” I say – and I really do, by <i>now.</i></p>
<p>Even the slowest learner starts to catch the gist by the 400th repetition of the same goddamn speech.</p>
<p>“THEY HAVE RAPED AND PLUNDERED OUR WOMEN!” Hitler shouts, smashing his coffee cup against the floor. Woodrow Wilson, passing bleakly by, purses his lips and skirts around the mess. I give him a commiserative glance.</p>
<p><i>Hardly convenient… but what can one do, really?</i></p>
<p>“I know,” I say again, abandoning my paper and taking up a pamphlet, printed enthusiastically by some officious little nobody, on Prohibition. “Hardly sportsman-like of them.”</p>
<p>“Oh, come off it, Adolf,” snaps Henry VIII, carrying a wife’s head under each arm (royalty, I suppose, are entitled to their odd habits) and piling his plate with danishes from the meagre buffet.</p>
<p>This being Hell, the danishes are always a little stale, but that’s a small price to pay, I suppose.</p>
<p>“Your people were weak! Your leade...